The United States and Japan will step up their defence cooperation to deal with the threat from nuclear-armed North Korea as tensions in East Asia remain high, officials from the two allies said on Thursday.

Legal aid cuts foolish: Burnside

Cutting funding to community legal services is profoundly foolish and will cost more than governments are trying to save, human rights advocate Julian Burnside says.

The federal government will cut $15 million in legal aid funding next financial year, while the NT government via the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) is cutting funding to the Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) and the Environment Centre.

Mr Burnside says the cuts to community legal services have been economically justified without any consideration of peoples' access to justice.

The cutting of funding to legal offices designed to help citizens hold government to account "is profoundly foolish; it will ultimately cost a great deal more than it allows you to save", he told the EDO's inaugural legal conference in Darwin on Friday.

The increasing number of people who represent themselves in court demonstrated the impact of inadequate funding, Mr Burnside said.

"If you have a person representing themselves, the judge has to spend a great deal of time trying to explain to them what's going on ... and trying to maintain an appearance and reality of being impartial," he said.

One-quarter of all appeals in the Australian legal system had one or both parties representing themselves, which was very costly and inefficient, he said.

It was announced this week that the EDO would lose its operational funding from the EPA, to be instead provided via a $1 million grants program open to the whole community.

The EDO would not be able "to just exist", but would have to propose projects with environmental outcomes, a department spokesman told AAP.

The EDO specialises in public interest environmental law, and is undertaking action for the Larrakia people of Darwin, who are trying to prevent the bulldozing of what they say is a sacred burial site.

Mr Burnside said the funding cut would not result in justice for indigenous traditional owners pitted against the government or mining companies.

"The inequality could hardly be greater, and where the forces are so disparate it's impossible to imagine you're going to get a just outcome in matters of fundamental importance," he said.

"It's easy enough to see this as a mark of government trying to free itself from the inconvenience of being held to account for decision making-processes for various legislation."